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Economic Development and the Regulation of Morally Contentious Activities

Julio Elías¹; Nicola Lacetera²; Mario Macis³; Paola Salardi⁴

¹ Universidad del CEMA, Av. Córdoba 374 (C1054AAP) Buenos Aires, Argentina (e-mail: ) · ² University of Toronto and Institute for Management and Innovation, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, ON, Canada, L5L 1C6 (e-mail: ) · ³ Johns Hopkins University, 100 International Drive, Baltimore, MD 21202 (e-mail: ) · ⁴ University of Toronto, 150 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5S 3G7 (e-mail: )

The regulation of many activities depends on whether societies consider them morally controversial or “repugnant.” Not only have regulation and related ethical concerns changed over time, but there is also heterogeneity across countries at a given time. We provide evidence of this heterogeneity for three morally contentious activities, abortion, prostitution, and gestational surrogacy, and explore the relationship between a country's economic conditions and how these activities are regulated. We propose a conceptual framework to identify mechanisms that can explain our findings (including the role of non-economic factors), and indicate directions for future research.

DOI

10.1257/aer.p20171098

Volume

107 (5)

Pages

76-80

Language

en

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